


if I fall to hell, then I can save myself from doom

by HolyEmpress



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Demon AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 08:43:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15020900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyEmpress/pseuds/HolyEmpress
Summary: Eichi sells his soul to a demon to get a chance at life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartdyed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartdyed/gifts).



> title is taken from Jubyphonic's english lyrics cover of A Happy Death/Koufuku-na Shi wo
> 
>  
> 
> thanks to @eggfish as always for proofreading !!!

His insides are burning.

He traces the pattern on his bed sheet, dipping his fingers into blood, repeating the shape until he’s sure he’s gotten it right. His hands are shaking.

_ Miracles won’t come, _ he says, eyes fixated on the sigil, trying to ignore the tears that are rolling down his cheeks.

 

It was late and no nurse would come to soothe him ; and his parents, his god-loving, devout parents, were sleeping in the comfort of their home, having forgotten all about their cursed son. They lit up meaningless candles in the living room’s altar and entrusted his salvation to a flame so weak it was gone by the end of the night – he remained alone as God’s hand refused to touch him and heal his pain.

_ Miracles won’t come,  _ he repeats, closing his eyes as he tries to focus on the incantation.

 

He only knew of one name.

Their religious instructors had made sure to never mention them in anything more than vague terms, saying it would « upset the heavens», but he had manage to stumble upon an old picture book in the mansion’s library one day.

It featured an ancient tale about  _ the demon of resonance, _ a tall, silver-haired man who turned clouds into spears and gave nightmares to the good soldiers of God. He’d reread it so many times, fascinated by that fearsome figure, enamored with the imagery – in those big illustrations, the magician-like demon was always followed by a large flock of birds, who, at his command, pecked out the eyes of his enemies as their leader bore a gleeful smile.

 

\- I abandon my rights to heaven and I devote myself to you, he begins, trembling.

 

The condition of oath he’d learned about later on, writing down notes everytime he found a fragment of the forbidden text. It was a lot of looking around the internet, asking innocent questions on message boards, trying to find the right people – and then erasing his tracks. He had it now.

A promise and a name.

 

\- Banished from the circle of reincarnation, I offer my soul to your kingdom ; tainted, I will avert my eyes from the sky, and bear your seal upon my back, for I am yours, and…

 

The words sound different than what he’d expected.

Even when he was supposed to show desperation, implore God for forgiveness, he could never bring himself to display true weakness ; yet, in this moment, as he was committing himself to an evil he knew capable of tearing the world apart for a vain, selfish goal, he was finally learning of how it felt to beg with crying eyes.

He’d held on for so long, trying to abide by the rules of the righteous ; but the rules were pointless for someone who’d never gotten to live, and even if it meant he’d never fly, he was going to walk out of this room.

Without a cane, without a breathing aid – with the one burden he’d chosen on his own.

 

\- ... I call upon you, Demon of Resonance.

 

At first, he feels the hand and its sharp claws.

It goes  _ through  _ him, leaving nothing but pain in its path : his eyes open and within seconds, he’s choking on thick blood, unable to breathe properly.

His vision blurs.

Next comes the voice, playful and loud.

 

\- I am flattered by your attention ! Let’s finish what you started, shall we ?

 

He can’t answer.

The other hand goes straight into his head : he doesn’t understand how he call tell, that this one’s close to holding his brain and that the other is clutching his heart, but suddenly, those sensations disappear and he feels  _ absolutely nothing,  _ which freaks him out even more.

His heart monitor goes silent, displaying a single, straight line ; and though he can still see what’s in front of him, the rest of his body is out of his control – as if he was machine, piloted by a superior force. The puking stops.

It laughs ; his own mouth opens to let it speak.

 

\- I welcome you into my shelter ; through our bond, I will empower you, and you will rise above the herd ; together, we will take back what God has stolen ; I accept you, my slave in all of eternity.

 

The demon releases control ; the electrocardiograph noises resume as normal, and finally, he sees him, sitting on his bloodied bed, silvery hair shining in the moonlight, beautiful like no human drawing could ever hope to depict. The creature slowly leans forward, embraces him - his hands start caressing his back, feeling each inch of skin, seemingly searching for a specific spot.

He doesn’t try to resist him.

 

\- There’s one last thing, the demon whispers in his ear.

 

The claws come out instantaneously, dig deep, and it burns, within a body part he didn’t even thought existed.

 

His wings are in flames.

That punishment was mentioned only few times in the holy scriptures, in minor scenes. Humans who betrayed a saint’s trust had their right to heaven revoked, and therefore, that specific part of them was taken out.

The sprout, proof of God’s blessing upon humanity ; the demon was touching it, severing his last connection to the skies.

 

\- Just so that they cannot get you back, Eichi-kun, he concludes.

 

He doesn’t understand what happens next ; but the last thing he sees before passing out, is the demon’s smile as he holds two small bones in his hand.

 

*.*.*

 

It’s daytime when he wakes up, and his parents are sitting next to his bed.

He notices they’d transported him to a new room. Though his heartbeat was still being monitored, there wasn’t a single needle in his arm. He takes a first, slow breath : nothing hurts.

His mother is the first one to realize he’s awake. She cries for a few minutes ; his dad doesn’t join in, but his gaze is weirdly insistent, as if doubting the very existence of his son. He remains silent for a while, taking the time to think.

His third guest was looking at his family with visible disgust.

 

\- Mommy, did you see the angel too ? He asks innocently.

 

She gasps, then rushes to hug him, and there’s no doubt that she believes.

He’d made a choice about his new life.

 

It would be their turn to pray for miracles.


	2. Chapter 2

The demon never leaves his side.

He’s present during every physical examination, watching quietly as doctors touch his body and as nurses draw blood. They find nothing out of the ordinary save for two small L-shaped scars on his back ; after a few drawn-out conversations with his parents, he’s allowed to go home.

A strange phenomenon occurs when the silver-haired man steps out of the hospital building ; birds immediately start flying toward his dad, until the demon motions to them. He seems annoyed.

 

The creature sits next to him in the car. It weirds him out a bit ; he hadn’t expected to share such mundane moments with the being who’d taken his soul, but the demon looks happy, even moving from his seat a few times to check out the little gadgets of their expensive sports car.

His mom sees nothing of that, talking non-stop, bombarding him with questions about the angel responsible for his recovery. Her curiosity helps him shape a pleasant story, embellishing the truth with metaphors. Blood becomes sin ; and suddenly everything makes sense, and he’s a pure, newborn soul meant to lead the world to a new truth.

He makes sure to cry just at the right times, weeping and thanking the heavens for its graces, though the tears feel filthy ; but lying brings him too much satisfaction. His dad was listening carefully, probably already thinking about how he would exploit this miracle.

There was only one person left to convince.

 

*.*.*

 

His parents order him to get some rest ; he obliges happily, carefully locks the door to his bedroom, closes all windows and the demon doesn’t make him wait, descending directly from the ceiling then landing on his desk with a graceful pirouette, visibly enjoying himself as he jumps down to meet him, knocking a few books in the process.

 

There’s something entrancing about the way he moves, a graceful kind of childishness. Though they hadn’t had the chance to talk yet, he’d observed him carefully, noting the details of his outfit - there was a beautiful royal blue jacket decorated in embroidery, on top of an especially well-fitted shirt, not quite the attire his mind associated with the unholy – as well as other interesting aspects of the demon’s behaviour. He’d concluded that he’d been blessed with a rather cheerful, interesting being.

A powerful lunatic with a strange inclination toward theatricality.

 

\- How… how should I call you? He attempts, unsure about which tone to use.

 

The days they’d spent without talking had left him feeling uneasy.

He remembered the sensation of his hands clutching his heart, of his claws removing the Sprout and prompting the worst pain he’d ever experienced ; how happy he’d seemed, holding those small bones into his hands.

The monster smiles brightly.

 

\- I am your very own Hibiki Wataru ! I take it your kind still enjoys tea ?

 

A cup of rose tea materializes on his bedside table before he’d gotten the chance to respond, and the demon – the « Hibiki Wataru » - gently pushes him toward it. He sits down, reluctantly taking a first sip. The beverage tastes heavenly.

 

\- « Demon of resonance » is perhaps more delightful to human ears ? The creature continues. I tend to get lost in the cycle of human trends, are titles still  _ en vogue _ ?

\- Wataru is fine.

 

Nothing makes sense anymore, but there’s something incredibly soothing about the tea he’d been given, so he doesn’t fight it. The demon was now wandering around his room, examining every single thing, from his phone’s battery cable to his wardrobe, punctuating his discoveries with loud « ooh » and « ahh ». He sits down on the bed, powerless to stop him.

Wataru ends up finding his beloved picture book after a while. His face lights up.

 

\- Oh, they didn’t burn these ? The artist was such an adorable creature, we shared some lovely conversations. How truly nostalgic.

\- She depicts you as a murderer, he objects.

\- And yet I was considered a minor deity for a while ! People would pray to me and beg for my magic. I was famous among them for my ability to cure melancholy. Funny how times change, don’t you think ?

 

He tries to picture it, Wataru appearing solely to cheer up depressed humans – surely, he’d had to have had ulterior motives, but it’s surprisingly easy to imagine, especially since the book made sure to mention the demon’s great talent for deceptive magic.

His guest seems to be done with his exploration, so he stands up to try and tidy up the mess he’d made, only to be immediately stopped by the demon.

 

\- No, please ! Someone like you must not overexert himself !

\- Didn’t you heal me ? He asks in disbelief.

 

Wataru’s smile drops.

His dark expression is enough to kill the mood. It takes him back to that first night, makes him forget his peaceful demeanor of the past days. His aura, right now, was full of a dark energy he couldn’t fully comprehend, something that wasn’t outright hateful but still  _ angered _ , as if he’d insulted him out of human ignorance.

 

\- I wish I could do such things, dear vessel, but what happened to you is called a cleanse. I let you borrow some of my energy to help your body fend off this plague of yours, but unless I decide to inhabit you permanently, the symptoms are going to come back.

 

His delivery is utterly emotionless, his expression only softening once he notices his trembling hands. He’d fallen victim to the illusion ; it was so liberating, to see the medical staff stare at him in disbelief, having to take back their condemning words and admit to the impossible scenario. All those vultures who preyed on his powerlessness, he’d gleefully abandoned them, preferring the King of all birds in his forbidden glory, gullible enough to believe that demons, forsaken by God himself, could hold the power to heal.

The blood he’d thrown and the pain he’d endured were meaningless.

 

The demon suddenly puts his hands on his shoulders and looks into his eyes.

 

\- Fortunately, my one and only wish is to empower you ! He declares. Monthly cleansing should be enough.

 

Wataru is terrible at sounding reassuring, but at least, unknowingly - he was getting him closer to his goals. They’d done enough playing around.

If this truly was about empowering him in a lifetime that would be punctuated by  _ cleansing,  _ he wouldn’t hold back, rising above humanity ; so that he’d own just as much as he was owned himself, an Emperor of the modern times, distributing happiness and taking it away as he pleased.

If the rest of the world wouldn’t get to choke on their own blood ; that was the least he could do.

 

\- You don’t look very happy, the demon comments.

\- There’s something I want to discuss with you.

 

*.*.*

 

His master is surprisingly enthusiastic about the idea.

He lets his mother convince the local pastor to allow him to speak mass. In the meantime, he and the demon are busy rehearsing ; the creature asking him about details he hadn’t even considered, showing him the wide array of tricks he was able to perform, as well as training him to endure the pain of being possessed. It’s slightly more gentle than a cleanse : Wataru doesn’t hold his heart as tightly, allowing him to make a few facial expressions, to react as he was reciting his text. They tweak the words until it feels like perfection.

Wataru takes care of him afterwards, petting his hair and massaging his shoulders until he falls asleep. It was one of the only conditions he’d set before accepting the deal, that they’d share the same bed. He doesn’t mind it, even when Wataru expresses the desire to hold him ; he’s starting to get accustomed to the sensation of his hands on his body anyways.

 

Sunday comes. Wataru asks him if he’s sure about this –  _ is that the kind of power you truly desire, my vessel ?  _ And he simply nods.

He sits through the mass as the demon explores every nook and cranny of the church, until it’s time for him to step on stage. Wataru looks pleased to stand in front of a crowd ; he tries to pay him not too much attention, focusing instead on the acting subtlety. He had to look unsure and timid.

His mom had sobbed in this very place so many times, imploring for salvation ; all the people present today were aware of his identity, him, the sickly Tenshouin heir who missed sermons to receive treatment, and cried when he had to confess his unholy thoughts to the pastor.  _ He’s so miserable,  _ they said.  _ He must have done something in his former life. _

 

A lot of what they’d prepared was deeply reliant on timing.

_ Dear friends, I am stepping forward today to tell you of our God’s mercy, _ he begins.  _ As many of you know, I have been enduring a particularly cruel illness ever since I was born, for which there is still no cure today, no cure save... for selfless devotion to the heavens. I thought my faith was too weak, in comparison to our God’s endless kindness ; however, the skies… saw fit to… _

He turns to Wataru ; to the empty space all the fools watching him couldn’t recognize as Wataru, and his eyes are glistening with admiration. The silence settles as he contemplates the demon, trying to remember what love looked like.

Wataru’s expression is soft when he puts his first hand in and reaches for his heart.

 

_ You needn’t talk anymore, my child. _

 

The demon doesn’t turn back to the crowd for that sentence, and it produces exactly the effect they’d hoped for. They’re captive, and Wataru, full of assurance, fulfils his role. His diction is perfect, sovereign and neutral, reasonably inhuman for there to be no doubt.

When he finally looks at the audience, their eyes are full of hope, some of them crying already.

 

_ We accept you, pure-hearted messenger, and trust you to lead your comrades away from sin. May you show them light in this darkened world, you, who I entrust with my holy words. _

 

The demon releases control slowly, giving him time to find the right adoring expression to settle into, letting tears flow slowly, but once it’s clear the « angel » is gone, an old lady rushes to the stage and falls to her knees, grabbing his hand to kiss it.

He hadn’t rehearsed this part, but instinctively kneels down to hug her, whispering just loudly enough,  _ they love you too. May your heart find peace. _

She’s still weeping when she goes back to her seat ; and, as he’d expected, the pastor makes sure to take advantage of the situation. He walks to him and puts one hand on his shoulder. This is the key moment.

He jumps back at the touch, and looks at him, pretending to be horrified.

 

_ You’re tainted, aren’t you ?  _ He cries.

 

It’s enough.

Enough for the church to belong to him entirely _. _

 

*.*.*

 

The following months go by quickly. He doesn’t understand why, but it’s as if they’re begging him to break their toy from the inside, as if the believers had grown bored of the austerity of their own god. He’s invited to talk, over and over again, until he’s asked to become the pastor’s definitive replacement.

Wataru is often away.

The rumors about « tainted » who’d had their eyes pecked out spread quickly. Nobody talks about the true miracles, about the abusive husbands who so conveniently left proof of their misdeed behind, the depressed children who brutally rose back from their torpor, the grandmas who got to be remembered by their family again. The demon enjoys those tasks the most, and, surely, it strengthens the devotion around him. They refer to him as the « bringer of happiness ».

He decides who to punish and who to bless.

 

His sermons get longer ; he’s invited to travel to many different churches around the country. The « angel » doesn’t need to speak through him for them to listen, but Wataru insists on creating illusions nonetheless, making the crowd believe in the presence of a true halo around his head.

His enemies have less pleasing hallucinations : just like in the picture book, they see their own gruesome deaths unfold, spears and snakes falling from the skies, and soon, no newspaper is bold enough to talk about  _ a fake prophet.  _ They fall at his feet and beg.

Politicians start taking interest in him, fascinated by his influence.

 

It’s a strange kind of high.

 

At times, he even forgets he’s human. He’s conducting the orchestra, leading the world around him into the music of a new era. Millionnaires look in his direction and see God as much as they fear judgement.

Only when the cleansing happens does he remember his own limitations ; but the pain is soon forgotten, and he feels joy again, happiness as pawns dance to the rhythm he’d set.

 

He meets back with Wataru every night before going to bed. The demon tries to talk about his day, to entertain him with cute little anecdotes, but he can’t find it in himself to laugh. Still, he drinks the tea he’s offered ; the taste, always new, is comfort at the end of difficult days.

Wataru holds him close, like he’s something fragile and soon to be broken.

 

It’s only when his dad smiles at him that he realizes.

He’d picked a new prison for himself.

He doesn’t have a single friend anymore ; his youth has been swallowed, digested by the stomach of religion, by the core belief that individuality was irrelevant and life but a fleeting dream as greatness awaited them above. Day after day, he gets to change every existence but his own, and he remembers the hours he’d spent watching the sky from the hospital window wishing to walk among the crowd. To go out for ice cream and walk into a karaoke bar to sing his heart out.

 

It’s a dotted line. He enters a church, and his heart beats, his soul sings, the cheering gets him drunk ; he steps down, and his heart shuts down, waking up in the morning becomes difficult, he hates the people who’d looked at him with adoration. He fights the urge to tell them the truth about miracles and happy endings, but he can tell they’ve grown dependent on the fantasy he provides, he can tell that it’s too late to undo the tapestry of lies, so he doesn’t speak for them anymore – he stands there, in the home of the believers, to take back what God has stolen.

Wataru watches from the sidelines ; he doesn’t send him away anymore, only ever asking for the intervention of the birds. His family gets richer. The dotted line goes on.

Miracles don’t mean a thing anymore.

 

He gets nightmares. The demon is there whenever he awakens ; surprisingly, Wataru finds ways to put him back to sleep, creating little illusions to trick his eyes into closing again, inventing nonsensical bedtime stories until he forgets about the content of his bad dreams. He watches with his head resting on his shoulder.

They talk about his sermons too, and he gets a glimpse into the demon’s perspective on things.  _ There’s few things humans like more than looking up,  _ Wataru declares one night.

It haunts him.

 

So much that he finds himself sliding out of bed and escaping through the bathroom window the week after, eager to experience the gravity of these words, knowing he’d have an hour to himself at best – Wataru didn’t sleep, or at least, not in the human sense, but his notion of time was also a bit distorted.

It’s raining outside ; his thin pajamas aren’t enough to keep him warm, and his slippers quickly get dirty in the wet grass, as he tries to cross the large park surrounding the Tenshouin mansion, but he’s too busy looking up to truly be bothered, searching for meaning within the cloudy sky.

It’s lonely.

He remembers doing the same thing, pulling the tubes from his bruised arms, taking his oxygen mask off and barely mustering the strength to open the hospital window, just to stare at that empty space – streetlights fading in the distant and quiet stars echoing a dream he couldn’t dare to share with anyone. The demon was right. There was truly a mesmerizing magic of the  _ above _ , back then. He’d believed in miracles, in the possibility of rising ; and now that he couldn’t feel God’s presence anymore, that he couldn’t  _ love  _ the way humans did, the sky was nothing but a harsh, impassable limit.

 

_ I just wanted to live,  _ he whispers.  _ I just wanted to take part in this, no matter the price. _

 

\- Oya? Did I find the legendary midnight wanderer ?

 

The demon had finally realized his absence, but seemed to be taking his disobedience with a smile. Sometimes, he could almost forget his evil nature, and begin to doubt he was even being  _ owned  _ by such an arranging creature. They’d had the occasion to talk about the other creatures of hell – and they seemed to have so little in common with his own jailer, even if he talked about them like old friends. Wataru liked to ride the bus back to the mansion and tell him about the conversations of strangers as if it was the most precious things in the world ; he read cheap romance books as he waited for his sermons to be done, most of them stolen from the bags of churchgoers, and laughed to himself, sitting under the statues of religious idols.

 

He’d expected some kind of abuse from him, but it made sense that Wataru treasured free will. It was written in his mystical title.

Resonance ; the phenomenon he experienced whenever the demon put his hands inside him, a way of penetrating the heart and twisting its feeling as well - in the religious sense, resonance was the bond between human souls, a link created outside of God’s influence, neither good nor evil. Its powers were never mentioned in the holy scriptures ; resonance simply  _ was,  _ unexplained, as if the messengers of the heavens had never been interested in that earthly magic.

To think that a demon could be born from that was strange, though it explained Wataru’s endless curiosity for seemingly mundane things, how he loved phones and architecture and stupid games he’d installed on his phone, eager to find all those territories that were out of God’s reach and existed purely – to strengthen that resonance. He understood, now. The illusion of being together ; the illusion of being excluded. The ability to connect and the desire to cut someone else off.

All of it created a song, a melody capable of summoning that peculiar creature into existence.

 

A king of birds that went looking for him when he left his room for too long, but didn’t drag him back immediately, just like he didn’t oppose his schemes, no matter how despicable they had become.

Of course.

_ Human nature had no secrets for Wataru. _

 

\- I want to leave, he says, not sure himself what he means.

 

He finally feels cold, standing in the rain, and yet, he has no intention of coming back to the mansion. He doesn’t want to look at the demon either - but two warm hands end up on his shoulders thanks to that decision.

 

\- Can you feel this, Eichi ?

 

The demon’s voice is tainted by sadness, but he wants to provoke him, so he shakes his head no. He doesn’t feel anything anymore, not even the warmth Wataru’s semi-physical form so expertly faked. The world was fading slowly around him ; he’d forgotten how it felt to care.

The hands go through and linger inside his body for a while, not reaching for anything. It’s painful – he loses his balance trying to withstand the horrible sensation, and only then, when his knees reach the ground, does Wataru grab his heart and brain.

 

\- I devote myself to you. My soul, drenched in sin, will follow you to the place where all light is lost, and in eternity, banished from the cycle of reincarnation, I will abide by your rules.

 

When he releases his hold, the sound of the rain becomes incredibly clear.

He notices every droplet, as well as every single subtle movement of the wind. It’s deafening, like a violent march. The nuances of his pain, the beating of his own heart, are relentless drums – it’s like waking up after a long slumber. He had no idea the words of the Oath could trigger that within him. Wataru gently puts a blanket over his body, and it’s as if he’s sitting by the mansion’s fireplace.

 

It takes him several minutes to stand back up and get used to the cacophony.

 

\- I would forbid you from getting sick, but this is enjoyable, is it not ? the demon comments after a while. I lent you a little more of my love than usual, so that you can drown in pleasure for a bit.

 

Wataru laughs.

The colors of the night are bright.

 

\- It’s dazzling, right ? I’ve missed this planet. One lifetime simply isn’t enough.

 

He finally turns to face Wataru. The creature is absentmindedly playing with the rain, redirecting it upwards with one finger before letting it fall again ; he’s wearing his blue jacket over his shoulders, which somehow fits him better, giving him the silhouette of a caped magician. There’s so much he wants to ask him all at once, about the origin of religion itself, about the reason their names were never to be mentioned, how the oath came to be and why its words were so powerful it was able to make him see each leaf of every tree, but more than anything, he wants to know about his first lifetime.

He doesn’t say any of this.

The words that escape his lips are just a little different.

 

\- What’s it gonna be like in hell?

 

No books had been able to provide him with an answer. The descriptions of the holy scriptures felt childish, incomplete, as if the angels dictating the texts were ignorant of it themselves, too busy living in their ethereal cloud palace to care about what existed outside of their influence.

He needed to know what it meant to belong to a demon.

 

\- It’s not gonna be as fun as your life on earth, that I can tell you. I’ll let you join the herd of sinners if you want to experience eternal anguish… or you can stay by my side and learn about the things a demon does when they miss weather changes and smart telephones, which I promise are both unpleasant and very boring, dear vessel. 

 

Wataru giggles, then pulls him into an unexpected hug.

The hypersensitivity from earlier had starting to fade ; the blanket, especially, was now just as wet as him, and, falling into his arms, he feels a strange kind of comfort. Maybe it’s the melancholy he’d heard in his voice, maybe the way he’d so expertly avoided the topic he wanted to discuss ; maybe it was the fact of the Miracle he’d asked for in his most despairing voice, but he felt love.  _ Resonance _ .

Bonds that existed outside of God’s perfect design. Chances to disturb fate.

 

\- So don’t be depressed on earth ! Revel in the love and in the surprises, adore the bloodbath you’ve started ! Tragedies are the most wonderful stories one can tell, and you make quite the charming protagonist.

\- Hmm.

 

He closes his eyes and moves, just enough to be face to face with the demon named Hibiki Wataru, before leaning in for a kiss.

It was the dream of a teenager who’d never gotten to be normal ; of a man who’d chosen the worst of sins, to be the lovesick hero under the pouring rain. Quickly, his hands move up to caress the back of the demon’s neck ; Wataru’s lips are soft and perfect, his hair like silk as it brushes against his skin, his kiss passionate yet careful – it feels as if he’s suffocating slowly, trying to match his rhythm, but he can’t stop. He can sense  _ hunger  _ in the way the demon responds to him – his palms slide under his shirt and immediately go for that one spot, tracing little circles around his scars.

His claws, for once, are out.

_ You’re mine,  _ the gesture seems to say, and it’s as if Wataru’s never owned anything before, because he doesn’t let him go, even when the initial kiss stops – the demon breathes in his scent like it’s a peculiar kind of poison and caresses the edges of his face, stopping only once he realizes that his weak human body wasn’t reacting well to its long exposure to the rain without demonic power to keep it going.

The demon picks him up, and starts carrying him back to the mansion.

 

\- Amazing... My human doesn’t loathe my company. I truly am God’s most dramatic failure.

 

He sounds happy. In his arms, he feels like a sick child again ; he’d become a part of the perfect illustrations of his old picture book, pathetically human. If he could never claim a pair of wings – he’d ask for something else, in this long sinful life.

A demon’s attention.

\- If you’re longing for new horizons, perhaps we should attempt a more tv-worthy performance ? Every trick I do shows up on film, we can probably get you invited overseas ? I hope they’ll make merchandise for your fans ! Don’t you want to see your face on a teacup ? Oh ! Maybe also a few t-shirts with inspirational quotes ? I’ll think up something impactful !

 

In spite of his boundless enthusiasm, Wataru’s work acts as the perfect lullaby, and before he knows it, he’s in his bed, dried up and exhausted, wearing clean pajamas. The demon rarely used his hypnotization powers on him, but it was understandable - he had a sermon scheduled the next day. He finally knew what he’d teach them about ; and eventually, they’d destroy their own church and kill him, because humans pursued ideals that ended up wrecking their souls and consuming their bodies.

They tore apart their own idols.

The « minor deity » next to him was the only proof he needed to support that belief.

 

\- My little wingless bird…  _ I’m sorry God forgot about you, _ Wataru whispers once he’s half-asleep.


End file.
